Related papers: RAFTER: Ring Astrometric Field Telescope for Exo-p…
Astrometry, one of the oldest branches of astronomy, has been revolutionized by missions like Hipparcos and especially Gaia, which mapped billions of stars with extraordinary precision. However, challenges such as detecting Earth-like…
Astrometry is a powerful technique in astrophysics to measure three-dimensional positions of stars and other astrophysical objects, including exoplanets and the gravitational influence they have on each other. Interferometric astrometry is…
A new generation of telescopes with mirror diameters of 20 m or more, called extremely large telescopes (ELTs) has the potential to provide unprecedented imaging and spectroscopy of exo-planetary systems, if the difficulties in achieving…
Context: With no conclusive detection to date, the search for exomoons, satellites of planets orbiting other stars, remains a formidable challenge. Detecting these objects, compiling a population-level sample and constraining their…
Microarcsecond (uas) astrometry is an indispensable technique to detect earth-like exoplanets, fully characterize exoplanetary orbits, and measure their masses --information critical for assessing their habitability. Highly accurate…
The extraordinary astrometric accuracy of radio interferometry creates an important and unique opportunity for the discovery and characterization of exo-planets. Currently, the Very Long Baseline Array can routinely achieve better than 100…
We present a conceptual design for a fiber positioning system for multi-object high-resolution spectroscopy, designed to be compatible with the upcoming large telescopes with a wide field of view. The design incorporates multiple…
The results of a study of the accuracy characteristics and image quality on the SAO RAS optical telescopes, Zeiss-1000 and BTA, using the recently developed "Telescope Analyzer" device are described: a method for determining the…
Phase Fresnel lenses have the same imaging properties as zone plates, but with the possibility of concentrating all of the incident power into the primary focus, increasing the maximum theoretical efficiency from 11% to close to 100%. For…
We present two novel designs for a telescope suitable for massively-multiplexed spectroscopy. The first is a very wide field Cassegrain telescope optimised for fibre feeding. It provides a Field Of View (FOV) of 2.5 degrees diameter with a…
Diffraction fundamentally limits our ability to image and characterize exoplanets. Current and planned coronagraphic searches for exoplanets are making incredible strides but are fundamentally limited by the inner working angle of a few…
With the advent of optical interferometers that will be coming online in the next decade, radial velocity searches for extra-solar planets will be complemented by high angular resolution astrometric measurements. In this paper, we explore…
High-angular-resolution imaging is crucial for many applications in modern astronomy and astrophysics. The fundamental diffraction limit constrains the resolving power of both ground-based and spaceborne telescopes. The recent idea of a…
The Earth's atmospheric turbulence degrades the precision of ground-based astrometry. Here, we discuss these limitations and propose that, with proper treatment of systematics and by leveraging the many epochs available from the Korean…
A near-infrared telescope with an effective aperture diameter of thirty millimeters has been developed. The primary objective of the development is to observe northern bright stars in the $J$, $H$, and $K_{\rm s}$ bands and provide accurate…
We describe the optimum telescope focal ratio for a two-element, three surface, telecentric image-transfer microlens-to-fiber coupled integral field unit within the constraints imposed by micro-optics fabrication and optical aberrations. We…
Astronomers usually need the highest angular resolution possible, but the blurring effect of diffraction imposes a fundamental limit on the image quality from any single telescope. Interferometry allows light collected at widely-separated…
Measuring the orbits of directly-imaged exoplanets requires precise astrometry at the milliarcsec level over long periods of time due to their wide separation to the stars ($\gtrsim$10 au) and long orbital period ($\gtrsim$20 yr). To reach…
We propose a new strategy for obtaining enhanced resolution (FWHM = 0.12 arcsec) deep optical images over a wide field of view. As is well known, this type of image quality can be obtained in principle simply by fast guiding on a small (D =…
Thick diffractive optical elements offer a promising way to achieve focusing or imaging at a resolution approaching 1 nm for X-ray wavelengths shorter than about 0.1 nm. Efficient focusing requires that these are fabricated with structures…